Search

Anxiety about aging is associated with adverse health and wellbeing outcomes, and increased ageism toward older people. Levels of anxiety about aging differ according to demographic variables such as age, gender, education and cultural background, and can be decreased through educational interventions. However, a lack of tools for measuring anxiety about aging in Eastern populations has limited research in non-Western populations. The aims of this study were therefore to translate and assess the psychometric properties of a Malay language version of the Anxiety about Aging Scale (AAS), and examine how scores differed according to participants’ age, gender, and level of education. The AAS was first translated into Malay using a forwards- and backwards- translation procedure, and then piloted with 18 Malaysian people. The final Malay language version of the AAS was then administered to 915 Malaysian participants (396 males, 519 female), aged from 18 to 60 years (M = 36.36 years). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that some modifications to the original four-factor structure of the AAS were required to optimize model fit. Younger adults and people with lower levels of education reported greater anxiety about aging, and female participants reported greater concerns about physical appearance compared to males. The findings suggest that the modified Malay version of the AAS provides a reliable and valid measure of anxiety about aging. The relationships between anxiety about aging and levels of education suggest that people with lower levels of education should be prioritized for educational interventions that increase knowledge about aging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) is a questionnaire to assess patients with nasal obstruction. The aim of this study was to translate and validate NOSE to the Malay version NOSE (M-NOSE). Methods: The NOSE questionnaire was translated to Malay language and back to English. Psychometric properties consisting of reliability, reproducibility, validity, responsiveness were appraised in patients with nasal obstruction due to deviated nasal septum and healthy asymptomatic controls. Results: A total of 126 participants were recruited. There was significant difference between patients and controls for all items and the total score (all p < 0.001). The correlation was moderate to strong between all items and total score (r = 0.71 to 0.8) and fair to moderate for the inter-items correlations (r= 0.31 to 0.70). Internal consistency for M-NOSE was good (α = 0.81). The test–retest for each item demonstrated no significant difference. There was significant difference of the pre- and post-operative mean for each item and total score (all p < 0.001) with good response sensitivity (effect size, d = 4.91). Conclusions: The M-NOSE has satisfactory reliability, internal consistency, reproducibility and responsiveness. It is a valid and convenient tool in the assessment of the impact and treatment outcome of nasal obstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kamus Dewan Perdana (KDP) is the largest and most complete dictionary of the Malay language (ML) and is the latest edition of the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (DBP), which targets ML native speakers and non-native speakers who are proficient in using ML. This study aims to identify Arabic loanwords (AL) in KDP and analyse questions of their entry regarding the aspects of etymology, word class, and definition from the perspective of users and researchers by using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as the methodology. The findings of this study found a total of 2847 entries of AL in KDP, which include 66% labelled Arabic (Ar) and 34% unlabelled. This study also found seven questions regarding AL entries in the KDP from the aspects of etymology, word class, and definition. Three questions arise from the etymological aspect, namely, (1) the inconsistent omission of etymological labelling, (2) the differences in terms of etymological labelling between KDP and Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat (KDE4), and (3) justification for the source language information of the loanword placed at the end of the entry in the KDP; a question arises from the aspect of word class, which is the inconsistency in word class labelling for AL expression entries; and three questions from the aspect of definition, namely (1) the inaccuracy in the definition of homonymous word variations in KDP, (2) the absence of definition of the AL entries in the KDP and (3) the deletion of AL entry in the KDP. The results of this study serve as user feedback, which contributed to DBP as the body responsible for improving the compilation of KDP as well as other dictionaries such as Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia (KBBI), Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD), Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English New Edition (LDCENE), Oxford English Dictionaries (OED), and Concise Oxford English Dictionaries (COED). This improvement will in turn be able to provide complete vocabulary information to the user community, both among native speakers and non-native speakers.

Previous research in comparative historical linguistics has traditionally focused on languages within a single region, overlooking cognate languages in other areas. This study seeks to rectify this by quantitatively and qualitatively describing the kinship between Rejang, Serawai, Lembak (Bengkulu), and Toba, Mandailing, and Nias (North Sumatra) languages. It aims to unearth empirical evidence regarding the timing of divergence between Malay and Batak languages, as well as the grouping of languages and the percentage of kinship between Bengkulu Province and North Sumatra Province. Utilizing Morris Swadesh's lexicostatistics and glottochronology methods, the research evaluates word kinship based on a fundamental 150-word list. Results indicate significant differences among the six languages, particularly with Rejang and Nias displaying low similarity levels, falling below 30% and not even reaching 10%, respectively. The percentage of kinship between local language pairs in Bengkulu and North Sumatra Province averages at 22.66%, classifying them under the "Family stock" category, indicating identical word correlations despite differing phonetic elements. Glottochronological calculations estimate the separation time between Malay and Batak languages to range from 419 to 3,289 BC. This research significantly enhances understanding of regional language kinship and linguistic diversity.

Mild sleep deprivation is widespread in many societies worldwide. Electroencephalography (EEG) microstate analysis provides information on spatial and temporal characteristics of resting brain network, serving as an indicator of neurophysiological activities at rest. This study seeks to investigate potential neural markers in EEG following mild sleep deprivation of a single night using EEG microstate analysis. Six-minute resting EEG was conducted on thirty healthy adults within 6 hours of waking in the morning and after at least 18 h of sleep deprivation. Translated and validated Malay language Karolinska Sleepiness Scale was used to assess the participants' degree of sleepiness. Microstate characteristics analysis was conducted on the final 24 subjects based on four standard microstate maps. Microstate C shows a significant increase in mean duration, coverage and occurrence, while microstate D has significantly higher occurrence after sleep deprivation. This study demonstrates notable changes in resting state EEG microstates following mild sleep deprivation. Present findings deepen our understanding of the brain's spatiotemporal dynamics under this condition and suggest the potential utility of neural markers in this domain as components of composite markers for sleep deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the involvement of bilingual texts comprising a source and its interlinear translation in Islamic educational practices in 19th- and 20th-century Sumatra. Such texts occur among the so-called kitab kuning, materials dealing primarily with the principles of Islamic faith, jurisprudence, and ethics that have been traditionally used for teaching in Indonesia's Islamic schools. Written in classical Arabic, these texts are sometimes provided with translations to Malay or other languages between the lines. The article addresses two cases demonstrating occurrence of this practice in manuscripts containing Islamic doctrinal texts that were often used for teaching beginners: an anonymous versified 'aqīdah originating from late 19th-century Aceh and a copy of Umm al-barāhīn by al-Sanūsī (d.1490), from Palembang of around the same period. The manuscripts under discussion appear to demonstrate different types of interlinear translation from Arabic to Malay, i.e. phrase-by-phrase and word-by-word. The article argues that both types combine literality with interpretation, which allows the assumption that interlinear translation was used as a tool for teaching both the Arabic language and the basics of Islamic doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Although translation generally involves the transfer of meaning from the source language (L1) to the target language (L2), it may also involve a third language or L3, that is, any other language(s) found in either the source or target text. Language variation in a source text presents a challenge to translators, as they need to deal with both L1 and L3. This paper aims to explore the issue of language variation in a source text to see how L3 is rendered in translation. More specifically, the aim is to explore how L3 segments in French, Latin and Italian in a text in English entitled Malay Sketches are dealt with when the text is translated into Malay, and to determine the effects resulting from the solutions taken by the translators. Methodology: L3 in Malay Sketches are first identified. These L3 segments are subsequently mapped to their counterparts in the Malay translation, Gelagat & Ragam Orang Melayu. This mapping results in source language-target language pairs, which are then analysed to determine the solutions taken by the translators. These solutions are categorised based on the framework of translation solutions in L3 translation by Corrius and Zabalbeascoa (2011). Findings: It was found that L3 translation generally involves substitution in which L3 is translated into Malay. Consequently, language variation, a defining feature of the source text, becomes invisible in the Malay translation. Contributions: This study hopes to contribute to and expand current discourse on L3 in translation, especially in view of the fact that scant attention had been paid to L3 translation in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) is a common condition especially among those of advance age that is often neglected. As the disease severity progresses, it increases the healthcare cost and resources required, while diminishing the quality of life of the persons. Health-related Quality of Life (HRQoL) among CVI patients begins to decline once the symptom starts to appear, and reduces it further as the symptoms worsens. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a prospective, multi-centred, cross-sectional study on consenting symptomatic CVI patients who presented to the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) teaching hospital in Pahang, Malaysia. The diagnosis of CVI was confirmed on duplex imaging. Clinical grading was performed using Clinical Etiologic Anatomic Pathophysiologic (CEAP) classification. Patients completed generic validated Malay language Short Form 36 (SF36) HRQoL instrument. RESULTS: One hundred and ten patients (62% male) with a mean age of 57 years, Malays (60%), Chinese (25%) and Indian (15%) were recruited. The most frequent CVD symptoms reported were pain (42%). The clinical, aetiological, anatomical, and pathophysiological (CEAP) classification placed most patients in the C2 class (34%). Apart from partaking in social functions, all other elements of mental and physical health component of SF 36 showed a marked deterioration as the disease progressed. CONCLUSIONS: We found a significant decline in the HRQoL among symptomatic CVI patients presenting to IIUM hospital in a multi-ethnic developing country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social media serves as a platform for netizens to stay informed and express their opinions through the Internet. Currently, the social media discourse environment faces a significant security threat—offensive comments. A group of users posts comments that are provocative, discriminatory, and objectionable, intending to disrupt online discussions, provoke others, and incite intergroup conflict. These comments undermine citizens' legitimate rights, disrupt social order, and may even lead to real-world violent incidents. However, current automatic detection of offensive language primarily focuses on a few high-resource languages, leaving low-resource languages, such as Malay, with insufficient annotated corpora for effective detection. To address this, we propose a zero-shot, cross-language unsupervised offensive language detection (OLD) method using a dual-branch mBERT transfer approach. Firstly, using the multi-language BERT (mBERT) model as the foundational language model, the first network branch automatically extracts features from both source and target domain data. Subsequently, Sinkhorn distance is employed to measure the discrepancy between the source and target language feature representations. By estimating the Sinkhorn distance between the labeled source language (e.g., English) and the unlabeled target language (e.g., Malay) feature representations, the method minimizes the Sinkhorn distance adversarially to provide more stable gradients, thereby extracting effective domain-shared features. Finally, offensive pivot words from the source and target language training sets are identified. These pivot words are then removed from the training data in a second network branch, which employs the same architecture. This process constructs an auxiliary OLD task. By concealing offensive pivot words in the training data, the model reduces overfitting and enhances robustness to the target language. In the end-to-end framework training, the combination of cross-lingual shared features and independent features culminates in unsupervised detection of offensive speech in the target language. The experimental results demonstrate that employing cross-language model transfer learning can achieve unsupervised detection of offensive content in low-resource languages. The number of labeled samples in the source language is positively correlated with transfer performance, and a greater similarity between the source and target languages leads to better transfer effects. The proposed method achieves the best performance in OLD on the Malay dataset, achieving an F1 score of 80.7%. It accurately identifies features of offensive speech, such as sarcasm, mockery, and implicit expressions, and showcases strong generalization and excellent stability across different target languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Identifying ageism among dental students is essential in gerodontology courses. This study aimed to perform a preliminary validation of a Malay version of the ageism scale for dental students (ASDS‐My). Methods and Results: The 27‐item ASDS were translated into Malay language and completed by 168 dental students. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Promax rotation, Polychoric Correlation Matrix and Principal Axis Factoring was conducted. Internal consistency reliability and discriminative validity were analysed. Criterion validity was measured by comparing ASDS‐My with Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA). A Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin of 0.612 and a Bartlett's Test of Sphericity yielding p <.001 confirmed the adequate factorability. EFA revealed a 15‐items scale distributed into five‐factors explaining 54.5% of overall variance, with acceptable reliability. The two factors involved cost‐benefit of dental treatment on older patients and challenges during medical history taking. The third, fourth and fifth factors explained attitude towards older patients, negative views of older patients and exposure of dental students to Gerodontology training and experiences respectively. Most factors were significantly positively related to FSA. Discriminative validity revealed significant differences for gender, place of stay and year of study. Conclusion: Preliminary validation of the ASDS‐My produced a five‐factors 15‐items scale with acceptable validity and reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approaches to automatic speech recognition have transited from Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based ASR to deep neural networks. The advantages of deep neural network approaches are that they can be developed quickly and perform better given large language resources. Nevertheless, dialect speech recognition is still challenging due to the limited resources. Transfer learning approaches have been proposed to improve speech recognition for low resources. In the first approach, the model is pre-trained on a large and diverse labeled dataset to learn the acoustic and language patterns from the speech signal. Then, the model parameters are updated with a new dataset, and the pre-trained model is fine-tuned on a low-resource language dataset. The fine-tuning process is usually completed by freezing the pre-trained layers and training the remaining layers of the model on the low-resource language corpus. Another approach is to use a pre-trained model to capture the compact and meaningful features as input to the encoder. Pre-training in this approach usually involves using unsupervised learning methods to train models on a corpus of large amounts of unmarked data. It enables the model to learn the general patterns and relationships between the input speech signals. This paper proposes a training recipe using transfer learning and Standard Malay models to improve automatic speech recognition for Kelantan and Sarawak Malay dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Self-care practices among patients with hypertension have been shown to improve blood pressure control. Video-based interventions (VBIs) are helpful in enhancing patients' selfcare practices. However, validated VBIs in the Malay language for patients in primary care settings are scarce. This study aimed to develop and validate a VBI series in the Malay language to educate patients with hypertension on self-care practices in primary care settings. Methods: This study was conducted in three phases: (1) pre-production, (2) production and (3) post-production. The pre-production phase involved designing the storyboard and scripts, which underwent content validation by content experts and subsequently by patients with hypertension. Once the storyboards and scripts achieved acceptable consensus, the videos were recorded (production phase). The post-production phase included video editing and face validation among patients with hypertension. Statistical analysis included the calculation of the item-level content validation index (I-CVI) and item-level face validation index (I-FVI) during content and face validation, respectively. Results: The storyboards and scripts for five videos were developed. The I-CVI of all videos was 1.0 after two rounds of content validation among six content experts. The I-CVI of all videos was 1.0 among five patients with hypertension. Five videos were recorded and edited, achieving an I-FVI of 1.0 during face validation among 10 patients. Conclusion: A VBI series consisting of five videos was developed and validated for use among patients with hypertension in primary care settings to improve their knowledge of self-care practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on narrative skills in the Malay language is scarce for both typically developing (TD) and children with Developmental Language Disorders (DLD). This study examines the differences in narrative abilities of Malay-speaking school-age children with and without DLD. Fifteen Malay-speaking TD children and 15 children with DLD told four stories elicited using the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narrative (MAIN). Group comparisons were conducted in narrative production (story retelling and story generation) as well as in comprehension. We also examined the differences in both groups’ story complexity (e.g. the combination of goals (G), attempts (A) and outcomes (O)). General microstructure features such as the total number of words (TNW), total number of sentences (TNS) and total number of different words (NDW) were also investigated. TD children outperformed children with DLD in both narrative production and comprehension performances. TD children constructed a higher combination of G, A, and O components than children with DLD. Children with DLD frequently produced G, A, and O in isolation in comparison to TD children. In language productivity and lexical complexity, TD children had a significantly higher frequency in TNW and NDW than children with DLD, resulting in longer narratives and higher uses of different words than children with DLD. Distinct differences are found in the narrative profile of TD children and children with DLD. The results are relatively consistent with the findings of similar studies that utilised and adapted the MAIN in other languages. Clinical implications and recommendations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple mini-interviews (MMI) have been used as a tool in the selection of medical students to evaluate their interpersonal and intrapersonal attributes. It is suggested that rigorous evaluation in MMI may predict academic performance during medical training. Thus, this study aims to determine the relationship between MMI scores and subsequent academic performance at the end of the preclinical phase. MMI scores for the academic session 2019/2020 intake in Universiti Putra Malaysia were gathered. The dependent variables were the students' academic performance at the end of the preclinical phase involving the Professional Examination and Professionalism and Personal Development (PPD) course. No significant positive correlation was observed between MMI and total Professional Examination scores. Total MMI and empathy station scores have a weak positive relationship with objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) marks. There was also a significant positive correlation between resilience station scores and PPD peer assessment marks. In contrast, there was a negative correlation between Malay language station scores and the theory component of Professional Examination marks. This study suggests that MMI has the potential to predict in-programme clinical performance and professionalism characteristics. Studies with larger cohorts are essential to support this evidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children with reading difficulties typically experience difficulties in both reading and spelling. Little is known about the use of spelling for identifying reading difficulties across languages that possess different orthographic depths, among multilingual readers. In the current study, we investigated whether multilingual Primary 1 poor readers were also poor spellers in two different orthographies, namely Malay and English. The sample comprised 866 Primary 1 Malaysian public school students from diverse backgrounds. A cut-off point of 25th percentile and below was used to operationalise students with deficits in word reading accuracy and spelling across both languages. A majority of the students who were poor readers in Malay and English, correspondingly, were also poor spellers in both languages. Spelling and word reading accuracy were highly correlated and considered as good indicators for identifying struggling young multilingual readers. These results indicate the importance of assessing spelling in both Malay and English for identifying reading difficulties, especially among young multilingual Malaysian learners. Implications for practice and future directions are addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translation studies in the 1960s have evolved due to the concept of culture turn which embodies gender translation problems. Gender is a culture-specific problem because languages have different peculiarities of natural gender, grammatical gender, and dual gender, which need a semantic cultural approach. This paper is a comparative qualitative study on translators' manipulation of gender in translation. Being a product-oriented study, it examines and compares existing translations of the novels, "I am Malala" and "Things Fall Apart" from English into Malay, French and Spanish to construct a translation modelling. The source texts (STs) and target texts (TTs) are wholly read; data related to natural gender, grammatical gender, and dual gender are identified, collected, and analyzed. The analysis is done following Leech's (1974/1981) theory on meaning. The research reveals that natural gender is translated literally from English into Malay, French, and Spanish; grammatical gender is also translated literally from English into French and Spanish, whereas in Malay a generalization is used for grammatical gender owing to the Malay language peculiarities. The research reveals also that there are meaning losses and malpresentation of women in dual gender nouns translation in French and Spanish due to biased orthodox patriarchal manipulation preference, which makes the masculine represent the feminine in dual gender nouns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vocabulary acquisition is an essential aspect of a child's language development. This study investigated vocabulary acquisition in the Malay language, examining variations related to age, gender, the impact of maternal education level, and the correlation between vocabulary and speech sound accuracy. A total of 326 Malay preschoolers, aged between 4 to 6 years, participated in this research. A set of stimulus pictures comprising 53 Malay vocabulary items were employed to assess the children's ability to name vocabulary items. The older children demonstrated higher Malay vocabulary naming accuracy compared to younger children. No significant differences were observed in terms of gender and maternal education level in relation to vocabulary naming accuracy. The findings, inconsistent with certain previous studies, underscore the necessity of examining methodological differences. There was a strong correlation between the accuracy of vocabulary naming and speech sound accuracy, suggesting a close relationship between vocabulary and speech sound acquisition. This implies that vocabulary and speech sound development are interconnected and may influence each other during the process of vocabulary acquisition in children. Understanding the correlation between vocabulary naming accuracy and other variables enables researchers to incorporate this information when designing assessments to gauge children's vocabulary acquisition more accurately. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) is a questionnaire to assess patients with nasal obstruction. The aim of this study was to translate and validate NOSE to the Malay version NOSE (M-NOSE). Methods The NOSE questionnaire was translated to Malay language and back to English. Psychometric properties consisting of reliability, reproducibility, validity, responsiveness were appraised in patients with nasal obstruction due to deviated nasal septum and healthy asymptomatic controls. Results A total of 126 participants were recruited. There was significant difference between patients and controls for all items and the total score (all p

Previous research on children with cleft lip and palate (CLP) reported unequivocal findings with regard to language skills, with the majority suggesting persistent difficulties in early childhood. While expressive language deficits improved with age, receptive language skills were consistently lower than peers. Further study investigating the long term and persistent impact of language deficits amongst school-aged children with CLP is warranted. This was a cross-sectional study, aimed to determine the language abilities and explore the associated risk factors in Malay speaking children with CLP in Malaysia. Fifty-two children with CLP aged 7- to 12-year-old participated in this study. Language skills were assessed using the Malay Preschool Language Assessment Tool and the adapted Subway–School–age Language & Assessment Measures. Findings revealed that 14 (26.92%) school-aged children with CLP demonstrated language deficits. Children with CLP performed significantly poorer in reading comprehension (p = 0.031) and narrative (p = 0.026) skills. It was found that the age significantly influenced total receptive language score (β = 0.421, p = 0.003) and total expressive language score (β = 0.477, p = 0.000). Findings suggested that children with CLP may continue to have persistent language deficits into their school-age years. Recommendations for regular monitoring of language performance especially for those from younger age groups is warranted to help maximize school attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) incidences and insufficient HIV knowledge among Malaysian late adolescents necessitate immediate attention to HIV prevention via education. This study aims to develop and validate an Information-Motivation-Behavioural skills (IMB) model-based education kit for adolescents, PREM-Kit, to educate on HIV prevention among Malaysian late adolescents. Utilizing the Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation model, we conducted the study in three phases: needs assessment, development of PREM-Kit, and validation of PREM-Kit by applying the IMB model to map the PREM-Kit's contents. PREM-Kit, developed in Malay language, consisted of an infographic flip chart and videos. Five multi-disciplinary experts validated the PREM-Kit using the content validity index (CVI), and 13 end-users validated the PREM-Kit using the Malay version of the Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool for Printable and Audiovisual Materials. The infographic flip chart comprised three modules covering 15 topics, and an animated video accompanied each module. PREM-Kit achieved CVI scores of 1.0 and median scores of over 80% for understandability and actionability. Overall, the newly developed IMB model-based HIV education kit has good content validity, is simple to comprehend and apply, and is ready for testing its effectiveness in improving adolescents' knowledge, attitudes, and practices for HIV prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has led to fear, rumours, and stigma, particularly against those infected with the virus. In Malaysia, the manufacturing industry is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 clusters, making it critical to assess stigma attitudes among workers. To address this issue, The Workplace COVID-19 Knowledge & Stigma Scale (WoCKSS) was developed specifically for use in the manufacturing industry which served as the sample population for testing this scale. It was developed in the Malay language to ensure alignment with the local context. This study examines the content and face validity of WoCKSS, which can help assess the level of knowledge and stigma associated with COVID-19 among workers. Methods: The WoCKSS was developed with 20 and 31 items for knowledge and stigma domains, respectively, based on an extensive review of COVID-19 literature. Content validation was conducted by four experts using a content validation form to assess the relevancy of each item to the intended construct. Content Validity Index (CVI) was calculated to measure the agreement between the experts on the relevance of each item to the intended construct. Face validation was then conducted by randomly selecting 10 respondents from the manufacturing industry, who rated the clarity and comprehension of each item using a face validation form. The Item Face Validity Index (I-FVI) was calculated to determine the clarity and comprehension of each question, and only items with an I-FVI ≥ 0.83 were retained. Results: The WoCKSS achieved excellent content validity in both knowledge and stigma domains. Only 19 items from the knowledge domain and 24 items from the stigma domain were retained after CVI analysis. All retained items received a CVI score of 1.00, indicating perfect agreement among the experts. FVI analysis resulted in 17 items for the knowledge domain and 22 items for the stigma domain. The knowledge domain achieved a high level of agreement among respondents, with a mean I-FVI of 0.91 and a S-FVI/UA of 0.89. The stigma domain also showed high agreement, with a mean I-FVI of 0.99 and a S-FVI/UA of 0.86. Conclusion: In conclusion, the WoCKSS demonstrated high content and face validity. However, further testing on a larger sample size is required to establish its construct validity and reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of technology in the era of the Fifth Industrial Revolution has had an impact on various fields, especially education. It is seen in learning of classical Malay prose, which is no longer relevant for the fifth generation today. Classical prose is said to be difficult to understand, and its form of delivery is boring. Hence, this study aims to identify the relevance of learning such prose in the Literature Component (KOMSAS) of the Malay Language subject syllabus delivered interactively and digitally. This research also attempted to identify values in classic proses that can be applied to modern society, especially among youths exposed to social media and technology. This study applies the theoretical framework of adjustable studies by Ure and Ellis (1977), which focuses on aspects of the social function of classical prose learning in society through quantitative and qualitative methods. Seventy respondents comprising both genders and from various educational backgrounds, careers and achievements were selected randomly in Selangor and Klang Valley. The researchers then used questionnaires to retrieve data in a descriptive quantitative manner. The data collected showed that learning classic proses is still accepted despite Malaysia being ahead in technology usage. Elements found in classic proses are also considered relevant and should be retained digitally and interactively. Simultaneously, the positive values and high ethical standards highlighted in classic prose could nuture competent teenagers when facing the challenges put forth by the Fifth Industrial Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

No studies on semantic change aim to develop a prototype of a loanword, even though many studies have been done in various languages. This study aims to develop a prototype of the semantic change of Arabic loanwords, focusing on extending their meaning in Malay. This study employed qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) methodology, which begins with a research question: There are patterns of extending the meaning of Arabic loanwords in Malay. To answer this, Arabic loanwords with labels and unlabelled with Ar were extracted from the Kamus Dewan Perdana (KDP) and then cross-referenced with the Arabic dictionary, al-Mu'jam al-Wasit (MW) to verify the etymology and to get the meaning of the word. As an initial step to develop a prototype, only the Arabic loanwords of entries A and B were extracted. Results from QCA revealed that of 588 Arabic loanwords found from entries A and B, only 32 underwent the process of semantic extension. This semantic extension can be divided into four patterns of general definitions and ten patterns of specific definitions. These 14 patterns generate two formulas, namely superset and relative complement. The superset refers to the meaning of Arabic loanwords being extended in the Malay language in contrast, the relative complement refers to different sets of meaning elements in Arabic. This prototype would provide a formula for the meaning of loanwords in Malay and could be applied to analyse loanwords in other languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Color Reading Speech Kit (Tubana Kit) is provided to improve the skills of listening, speaking, reading, observation, concentration, and interest and reduce the stress of students in special education schools. This kit consists of two items, namely activities for tongue twister training in the form of software and English and Malay activities and coloring books. This study was conducted through collaboration with the Mobile Book Café as the industry collaborator and Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Seremban 2, as the community collaborator. The respondents comprised 14 special needs students, i.e. 7 students from the Malay Language class and 7 students from the English Language Class. Despite having learning disabilities, these special needs students are still able to read and write. All the students in the Malay Language and English class have profited from the Tubana Kit's knowledge transfer, according to the results obtained after utilizing it. The pupil now speaks and behaves better, with better pronunciation. Their vocabulary and articulation in both Malay and English are also on par. The use of coloring books and activities in both Malay and English has improved vocabulary usage among students who typically have low vocabulary. Indeed, SMK Seremban 2 children with special needs have demonstrated the effectiveness of the Tubana Kit as a therapy tool in both Malay and English languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The Illness Cognition Questionnaire (ICQ) was translated from its original English version to the Malay version for this research, adapted the Malay language version of the ICQ (ICQ-M) for use in cancer patients, and assessed the internal consistency, content, face, construct, convergent, discriminant and concurrent validity of the ICQ-M among a cohort of cancer patients with mixed cancer types in Malaysia. Method: Initially, the ICQ was translated into Malay and back-translated, and its content and face validity were evaluated. Then, 346 cancer patients with various cancer types received the ICQ-M, and its internal consistency, convergent, discriminant, construct, and concurrent validity were evaluated. Results: The ICQ-M and its domains had acceptable internal consistency with Cronbach's α ranging from 0.742 to 0.927. Construct validity assessment demonstrated that the ICQ-M consists of 17 items designated in two domains with good convergent and discriminant validity. The ICQ-M and its domains also had moderate correlations with the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire II, which denotes that the ICQ-M had acceptable concurrent validity. Conclusion: The ICQ-M had good psychometric properties and is now available to measure the illness cognition of cancer patients in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Medication use among pregnant and breastfeeding women is common. The willingness to take medications may be influenced by the individuals’ beliefs towards medication use. Pregnancy-Specific Statements (PSS) and Breastfeeding-Specific Statements (BSS) were suggested as tools to assess pregnant and breastfeeding women’s beliefs on this matter. This study aims to adapt, translate and validate these tools in Malay version for the Malaysian population. Methods: Phase 1 involved the development and translation of study instruments, and Phase 2 involved a pilot study. The questionnaires comprise four sections: 1) Section A comprising demographics information using closed-ended and open-ended questions; 2) Section B: BMQ-General; 3) Section C: BMQ-PSS; and 4) Section D: BMQ-BSS using Likert scale questions. A reliability test was conducted on sections C and D items. Results: Two survey tools, BMQ-PSS and BMQ-BSS, had undergone adaptation and translation into the Malay language. BMQ-PSS had a good internal consistency and reached acceptable reliability. Cronbach’s alpha reported for BMQ-PSS (P1-P9) was 0.644. However, BMQ-BSS only achieved acceptable reliability with the deletion of two items from the questionnaires (B2 and B3). The Cronbach’s alpha reported for BMQ-BSS (B1-B7) was 0.415 and with deletion of B2 and B3 resulted in an alpha value of 0.696. Conclusion: BMQ-PSS was shown to have good reliability while BMQ-BSS may require modifications before it can be used for the public. Further face and content validation steps can be performed using a bigger sample size before the tools can be used in a large-scale study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Purpose: Translators encounter significant challenges when dealing with the structures of Quranic euphemisms, particularly in effectively avoiding ambiguity of meanings in the target text. This study aims to investigate ambiguity in the translation of Quranic euphemisms into the Malay language and identify effective approaches to address it. Methodology: The present study employed a descriptive analysis, adapting Olimat's (2018) Evaluation Model of Euphemism Translation in the Quran and Newmark's (1981) Semantic and Communicative Theory. Six samples were meticulously chosen with the purpose of effectively capturing ambiguities in the translation of texts related to the domain of sexuality. This study presents each Quranic euphemism in its original Malay translation and a literal English translation, aiming to enhance comprehension and promote a deeper appreciation of the nuances and subtleties in the translation of Quranic euphemisms. Findings: The findings revealed notable deficiencies in accurately conveying the intended meaning in certain translations, despite the implementation of parentheses to facilitate explicitation. Additionally, some translations fell short of fulfilling the lexical function of the words, leading to discrepancies and insufficiencies of information in communicating the contextual meaning. Furthermore, certain translations did not align with the target language context. Contributions: Translators need to employ strategies such as contextual analysis, cultural adaptation, and clarification through additional explanatory to minimize ambiguity in the translated text. Overall, five main aspects need to be considered in the translation of Quranic euphemisms: conveying the true meaning, adherence to grammar rules, effectiveness in word selection, preservation of euphemistic style, and appropriateness of translation approaches. The findings of this study offer valuable insights to Quran translators, specifically those involved in the field of Arabic-Malay translation and pave the way for future advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parallel texts corpora are essential resources in linguistics and natural language processing, especially in translation and multilingual information retrieval. The publicly available parallel text corpora are limited to certain genres, types and domains. Furthermore, the parallel dialect text is scarce, even though they are important in the analysis and study of a dialect. Collecting parallel dialect text is challenging because dialects typically appear in the form of speech and very limited dialectic texts exist. Moreover, there is no standard orthography in most dialects. The contributions of this paper are threefold. First, the paper describes a methodology in acquiring a parallel text corpus of Standard Malay and Malay dialects, particularly Kelantan Malay and Sarawak Malay. Second, we propose a hybrid of distancebased and statistical-based alignment algorithm to align words and phrases the parallel text. The results show that the precision and recall values of the proposed alignment algorithm are more than 95% and better than the state-of-the-art GIZA++. Third, the alignment obtained were compared to find out the lexical similarities and differences between Standard Malay and the two studied Malay dialects, contributing valuable insights into the linguistic variations within the Malay language family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Issues in Language Studies is the property of Issues in Language Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The number of speakers of Betawi Malay is decreasing due to both external and internal factors. The rapid migration to Jakarta, the home of Betawi people, and the negative attitude of the Betawi Malay native speakers towards their language have endangered the existence of Betawi Malay language. The same case also happened to Betawi Malay spoken in Bekasi, the other area where Betawi people live. Tangible efforts to save Betawi Malay language are needed, one of which is through Betawi Malay documentation. In this study, the documentation focused on colour vocabulary. This study aims to find how far the colour vocabulary of Betawi Malay spoken in Jakarta and in Bekasi is different. This study used a qualitative method. 18 native speakers of Betawi Malay living in Jakarta and Bekasi were chosen as the informants. Observations, interviews, questionnaires, and documents were used to collect the data. A semantics approach was used in analysing the data. The results of the study show that the colour used in Betawi Malay spoken in Jakarta and Bekasi is differentiated by colour association, environment, and attitude. Environmental factors are very influential in building the speaker’s way of thinking and the speaker’s identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This study aims to develop a teaching model of the Malay language for non-native and foreign speakers in schools. Implementing this model can assist educators in teaching the Malay language to students who do not use it as their first language in everyday use. Methodology - This study used a qualitative approach to develop teaching models for non-native and foreign Malay speakers. Interviews were conducted with 27 teachers and 23 stakeholders who are experts in teaching the Malay language, especially in teaching non-native speakers. A prototype model was developed thematically as a result of interviews using ATLAS.ti 22. Further, the prototype model was used by ten teachers from primary, secondary, and international schools in their teaching. Findings - This study has succeeded in developing a model for teaching the Malay language to non-native speakers and foreigners that includes five elements: teaching strategies, individual differences, input, social, and motivation. This model strongly emphasises instruction involving interaction, communication, and bilateral relations as a medium for students' language acquisition and meaningful input. Verbal interaction between teachers and students can stimulate and improve students' language skills in learning Malay. Significance - This model can help teachers teach the Malay language to non-native speakers and foreigners with a greater focus on achieving learning objectives. This model is expected to expand the usage, cultivate interest, and facilitate teaching the Malay language in educational institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Gout is a chronic disease commonly associated with other comorbidities. Patients' perceived quality of life empowers them in managing their health. Self-management is imparted as part of management among patients with chronic disease. This study aimed to explore the perceptions and practices of self-management among patients with gout from different ethnic groups in Malaysia. Methods: A qualitative study was conducted among Malay, Chinese and Indian patients with gout via semi-structured in-depth interviews at the primary care clinic of University Malaya Medical Centre in either English or Malay language. All participants had a gout duration of more than 6 months and were either taking urate-lowering drugs or not using them at all. Results: A total of 20 participants were successfully recruited for the study. Among the participants, 18 were men, while two were women. Further, nine were Malays; six, Chinese; and four, Indians. The age ranged from 29 to 81 years, while the gout duration ranged from 1 to 30 years. From the interviews, three themes emerged: experiences with gout, types of self-management of gout and factors influencing self-management of gout. Conclusion: Diet control is the main self-management practice of patients with gout. Traditional medicine practices include natural methods such as consumption of different types of vegetable juices, pineapple and papaya. Each ethnicity has its own unique beliefs and food cultures. By understanding the self-management practices of patients from diverse ethnic backgrounds, healthcare practitioners can tailor the treatment of gout to individual needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Named entity recognition (NER) is a crucial component of various natural language processing (NLP) applications, particularly in healthcare. It involves accurately identifying and extracting named entities such as medical terms, diseases, and drug names, and healthcare professionals are essential for tasks like clinical text analysis, electronic health record management, and medical research. However, healthcare NER faces challenges, especially in Malay, in which specialized corpora are limited, and no general corpus is available yet. To address this, the paper proposes a method for constructing an annotated corpus of Malay health documents. The researchers leverage a parallel source that contains annotated entities in English due to the limited tools available for the Malay language, and it is very language-dependent. Additional credible Malay documents are incorporated as sources to enhance the development. The targeted health entities in this research include penyakit (diseases), simptom (symptoms), and rawatan (treatments). The primary objective is to facilitate the development of NER algorithms specifically tailored to the healthcare domain in the Malay language. The methodology encompasses data collection, preprocessing, annotation of text in both English and Malay, and corpus creation. The outcome of this research is the establishment of the Malay Health Document Annotated Corpus, which serves as a valuable resource for training and evaluating NLP models in the Malay language. Future research directions may focus on developing domain-specific NER models, exploring alternative algorithms, and enhancing performance. Overall, this research aims to address the challenges of healthcare NER in the Malay language by constructing an annotated corpus and facilitating the development of tailored NER algorithms for the healthcare domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This study aims to develop a teaching model of the Malay language for non-native and foreign speakers in schools. Implementing this model can assist educators in teaching the Malay language to students who do not use it as their first language in everyday use. Methodology – This study used a qualitative approach to develop teaching models for non-native and foreign Malay speakers. Interviews were conducted with 27 teachers and 23 stakeholders who are experts in teaching the Malay language, especially in teaching non-native speakers. A prototype model was developed thematically as a result of interviews using ATLAS.ti 22. Further, the prototype model was used by ten teachers from primary, secondary, and international schools in their teaching. Findings – This study has succeeded in developing a model for teaching the Malay language to non-native speakers and foreigners that includes five elements: teaching strategies, individual differences, input, social, and motivation. This model strongly emphasises instruction involving interaction, communication, and bilateral relations as a medium for students’ language acquisition and meaningful input. Verbal interaction between teachers and students can stimulate and improve students’ language skills in learning Malay. Significance – This model can help teachers teach the Malay language to non-native speakers and foreigners with a greater focus on achieving learning objectives. This model is expected to expand the usage, cultivate interest, and facilitate teaching the Malay language in educational institutions.

A computer-aided language translation using a Machine translation (MT) is an application performed by computers (machines) that translates one natural language to another. There are many online language translation tools, but thus far none offers a sequence of text translations for the under-resourced Kadazandusun language. Although there are web-based and mobile applications of Kadazandusun dictionaries available, the systems do not translate more than one word. Hence, this paper aims to present the discussion of the preliminary translation of Malay to Kadazandusun. The basic word-to-word with dictionary alignment translation based on Direct Machine Translation (DMT) is selected to begin the exploration of the translation domain where DMT is one of the earliest translation methods which relies on the word-to-word approach (sequence-to-sequence model). This paper aims to investigate the under-resourced language and the task of translating from the Malay language to the Kadazandusun language or vice versa. This paper presents the application and the process as well as the results of the system according to the basic Kadazandusun word arrangement (Verb-Subject-Object) and its translation quality using the Bilingual Evaluation Understudy (BLEU) score. Several phases are involved during the process, including data collection (word pair translation), preprocessing, text selection, translation procedures, and performance evaluation. The preliminary language translation approach is proven to be capable of producing up to 0.5 BLEU scores which indicate that the translation is readable, however, requires post-editing for better comprehension. The findings are significant for the quality of the under-resourced language translation and as a starting point for other machine translation methodologies such as statistical or deep learning-based translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Due to the increased interest in cryptocurrencies, opinions on cryptocurrency-related topics are shared on news and social media. The enormous amount of sentiment data that is frequently released makes data processing and analytics on such important issues more challenging. In addition, the present sentiment models in the cryptocurrency domain are primarily focused on English with minimal work on Malay language, further complicating problems. Objective: The performance of the sentiment regression model to forecast sentiment scores for Malay news and tweets is examined in this study. Methods: Malay news headlines and tweets on Bitcoin and Ethereum are used as the input. A hybrid Generalized Autoregressive Pretraining for Language Understanding (XLNet) language model in combination with Bidirectional-Gated Recurrent Unit (Bi-GRU) deep learning model is applied in the proposed sentiment regression implementation. The effectiveness of the proposed sentiment regression model is also investigated using the multi-head self-attention mechanism. Then, a comparison analysis using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) is carried out. Results: The experimental results demonstrate that the number of attention heads is vital in improving the XLNet-GRU sentiment model performance. There are slight improvements of 0.03 in the adjusted R2 values with an average MAE of 0.163 (Malay news) and 0.174 (Malay tweets). In addition, an average RMSE of 0.267 and 0.255 were obtained respectively for Malay news and tweets, which show that the proposed XLNet-GRU sentiment model outperforms the BERT sentiment model with lesser prediction errors. Conclusion: The proposed model contributes to predicting sentiment on cryptocurrency. Moreover, this study also introduced two carefully curated Malay corpora, CryptoSentiNews-Malay and CryptoSentiTweets-Malay, which are extracted from news and tweets, respectively. Further works to enhance Malay news and tweets corpora on cryptocurrency-related issues will be expended with implementing the proposed XLNet Bi-GRU deep learning model for greater financial insight. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The painDETECT questionnaire (PDQ) is a useful tool for screening of patients with neuropathic pain. This study aimed to translate the PDQ into the Malay language (PDQ-M) and to achieve cross-cultural adaptation of the questionnaire for use in Malaysia. Methods: The translation and cultural adaptation process of the English version of PDQ was performed based on international guidelines. Subsequently, 97 patients with neuropathic and nociceptive pain based on clinician's diagnoses were recruited to complete three-type numeric rating scale (NRS) of pain followed by PDQ-M. Results: On the basis of cognitive debriefing, several changes of the translated PDQ-M were made. A total of 53 patients with neuropathic pain and 44 with nociceptive pain (54.6% females, 45.4% males, mean age 52.4 years ± 14.2) were recruited into this study. The most common class of analgesia prescribed for patients with neuropathic pain was anti-convulsant, whereas co-analgesic therapy, which includes NSAID and COX-2 inhibitor, was the most prescribed for patients with nociceptive pain. Combination analgesia was used in 32.1% of those with neuropathic pain, and 11.4% of patients with nociceptive pain. The median time taken for respondents to complete the questionnaire was 420 seconds. In regression analysis, active smoking (beta 0.586, p<0.001) and female gender (beta -0.422, p=0.008) were associated with higher PDQ-M scores only among those with neuropathic pain. Conclusions: The Malay version of the painDETECT questionnaire was translated and cross-culturally adapted for ease of understanding among the local population via careful face-to-face interview. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the acoustic features of the monophthongs of Penang Malay (PM) based on the frequencies of the first (F1) and second (F2) formants as produced by five selected female speakers who are of the Jawi Peranakan (JP) community in Penang, Malaysia. This study is significant as it describes the monophthongs of PM because previous studies have focused on the acoustic analysis of Standard Malay (SM) and analyzed PM from impressionistic and phonological aspects. The target vowels are [a], [i], [u], [ε], [ɔ], [ə], [e], and [o]. A series of words were used to elicit data from the speakers. The tokens produced by the speakers were recorded and analyzed using Praat version 6.0.50. The two formants were analyzed using the Formant Frequency Model, and independent samples t-tests were conducted. The findings reveal that the PM participants mostly produced vowels following impressionistic studies of past researchers. However, PM speakers did not distinguish between [ε] and [e] as the sounds were conflated as one vowel. These results challenge past claims of homogeneity between PM and Kedah Malay (KM). This study expands knowledge on PM's phonetics and highlights avenues for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With reference to the Malay Language Secondary School Standard Curriculum, proverbs in Malaysian contexts are one of the language aspects that students needs to use integrated in the language teaching. This research identified proverbs in the Malaysian secondary school textbooks analyzed using inquisitive semantic approach. The proverbs data were obtained Form 4 and Form 5 Malay Language textbooks, from Ministry of Education Malaysia. Nine pieces of data were identified using the inquisitive semantics study framework involving three stages; surface meaning analysis, the semantics resonance analysis involving speaker's cognitive by applying the Cross-reference Framework (Kempson, 1986) in the Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986; 1995), and the meaning analysis using the inquisitive semantics approach (Jalaluddin, 2014). The study indicated the proverb meaning analysis starting from the knowledge of the meaning from the dictionary, followed by the meaning of the proverbs in the context of sentences, and the exploration into the philosophy and common sense underlying the formation of the proverbs. The study proposed that the textbooks stimulated students' higherorder thinking skills with the inquiry method to create new discovery and knowledge. In conclusion, the textbooks offered teachers the proverbs analyzed by the inquisitive semantics approach as a teaching approach such to make the process of learning language in their classrooms more meaningful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indonesia has a variety of ethnic languages, most of which belong to the same language family: the Austronesian languages. Due to the shared language family, words in Indonesian ethnic languages are very similar. However, previous research suggests that these Indonesian ethnic languages are endangered. Thus, to prevent that, we propose the creation of a bilingual dictionary between ethnic languages, using a neural network approach to extract transformation rules, employing character-level embedding and the Bi-LSTM method in a sequence-to-sequence model. The model has an encoder and decoder. The encoder reads the input sequence character by character, generates context, and then extracts a summary of the input. The decoder produces an output sequence wherein each character at each timestep, as well as the subsequent character output, are influenced by the previous character. The first experiment focuses on Indonesian and Minangkabau languages with 10,277 word pairs. To evaluate the model's performance, five-fold cross-validation was used. The character-level seq2seq method (Bi-LSTM as an encoder and LSTM as a decoder) with an average precision of 83.92% outperformed the SentencePiece byte pair encoding (vocab size of 33) with an average precision of 79.56%. Furthermore, to evaluate the performance of the neural network model in finding the pattern, a rule-based approach was conducted as the baseline. The neural network approach obtained 542 more correct translations compared to the baseline. We implemented the best setting (character-level embedding with Bi-LSTM as the encoder and LSTM as the decoder) for four other Indonesian ethnic languages: Malay, Palembang, Javanese, and Sundanese. These have half the size of input dictionaries. The average precision scores for these languages are 65.08%, 62.52%, 59.69%, and 58.46%, respectively. This shows that the neural network approach can identify transformation patterns of the Indonesian language to closely related languages (such as Malay and Palembang) better than distantly related languages (such as Javanese and Sundanese). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]